Birthdays

We decided after much discussion for our son’s 6th birthday last weekend to have a rather unstructured good old-fashioned park party. It is June, after all, and we didn’t need to be indoors with scheduled entertainment. Although I had it all organized, at 2am the morning of the party, I started to panic: do I have enough activities planned? Will they be bored? I reviewed rules for Red Rover and Red Light Green Light as though I were studying for finals. I had potato sacks (in burlap!) at the ready for potato sack races, but the real star of the party was the round rainbow “Funchute.” Kids hold the sides by the handles and play various games: you can spin by holding the handles with one hand in the same direction; put a ball in the middle, bounce it up and down as a team, while keeping it on the parachute; you can even put a kid at the center and do the same (within reason!). The group can wave it up and down and eventually release it so that it floats up in the air. Invariably, a few kids will play with it as a tent. There are a bunch of different sizes. Six Feet in diameter is the standard and they go for as little as $16. I got a bigger one for about $25.

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